Claustrophobia
by Merccy
Summary: An angsty little Cypher fic, set seven years after he joined the Neb.


**Title:** "Claustrophobia" 

**Author:** Mercury 

**Rating:** PG-13 for some language, drinking, and attempted suicide. 

**Summary:** An angsty little Cypher fic, set seven years after he joined the Neb. 

**Author's Notes:** Of course, I don't own the Matrix or anything like that. This is just some angsty, un-beta'd stuff I wrote after watching the Without a Trace episode "Wannabe" and pretty much sobbing my brains out. So it's very much inspired by that. 

Enjoy.

Cypher sat in the corner of the room, a small closet he had wandered into a few minutes ago. Hell, he had never known of its existence until he decided to use it as a temporary refuge from the activity outside. Its door had been open, showing him inside a dark yet oddly inviting room. It was the dark hole he had envisioned crawling into for the past seven years.

Outside people freeborn and pod-born alike were dancing, losing themselves in a mindless rush of music and heat. He hated the idea of being packed into one large, ever-moving crowd - after all, he had been enclosed in a pod for his entire life, and he had been fighting back the feeling of claustrophobia ever since. So how was dancing in that mass going to help?

Because no matter where he went, he was trapped. The ship wasn't very spacious, and even Zion felt like a prison. It was underground, a cave disguised as a city. He would give anything to be able to walk on the surface, to breathe in the free air and feel released if only for a few minutes. He just wanted to feel like he wasn't confined to tight quarters.

A couple stumbled into the closet but then backed out when they saw him sitting there. "Hey, man, you should join the party," one of them slurred, and Cypher regarded them with disgust. These were the rebels who would save humanity. Right.

The door shut and he was again blind to his surroundings. But the black was peaceful. It meant he couldn't see himself for the creature he had become, and he liked that.

It was strange how close quarters could make you feel so lonely, when only a short while ago he felt comfortable surrounded by others. Of course, that was seven years ago, when he was more handsome and likeable. Whenever he was in his cabin he was wrapped in the arms of someone who loved him, and that made him feel secure rather than suffocated.

At that time the matrix was his escape. It was the closest he knew he would ever come to being free, the only way he could escape the Neb. But when he was forced to stand aside and watch the one who had made him feel so secure die, he began to feel the claustrophobia even in his virtual escape. He was surrounded on all sides by walls of invisible code that lead in two directions - one, back to the ship and to more pain, in another, death.

Upon later reflection, he guessed the latter option would probably have been the wiser decision. But the blind will humans possessed to live kept him going, and that determination had lead to where he was now - a closet, where he was wallowing in misery alone. He needed a drink now, more than ever.

Cypher stumbled to his feet and found the handle to the door, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the glow of the candles around him. Slowly he made his way to the bar, choosing the seat on the far end of the counter. Smirking, he remembered how he would always sit there when he was still in the matrix, how he would sit brooding over a drink and look mysterious and cool. And now what was he? Nobody. His days as a hotshot kid were over.

"What can I get you?" Asked the bartender, a Zionite kid whose perkiness was reason enough for a scowl to appear on Cypher's face.

He shrugged. "Anything that's strong enough to knock me out for the rest of the night."

The man a couple of seats to his left overheard this and slid over to the seat next to Cypher's. "You're not the only one who hates these damn orgies?" He asked, taking a sip of a murky liquid.

"I guess so. It's a fucking zoo."

"Got that right." The man agreed, tapping the rim of his glass to Cypher's and laughing before gulping down a large amount and spluttering. "This stuff - back in the matrix this party'd at least have some decent booze. Scotch. Not this stuff, this stuff - " His words were slurred, and he suddenly got up and wandered off before he could finish his sentence, muttering something about real alcohol as he staggered down the path leading to the rooms.

Cypher downed a tall glass of his own and nodded to the bartender to fill up his glass again. The alcohol was almost dangerously strong, and he loved every last bit of it.

"Don't you love these parties?" The kid chirped, obviously having the time of his life serving drunken old men like Cypher. "I think we should have them more oft - "

"Shut _up_." Cypher emphasized in exasperation. Unfazed, the kid backed away to serve another customer as Cypher knocked back another drink. The drink, whatever it was, was beginning to go to his head. Good.

Slamming the empty glass down on the counter, unable to bear any more of its bitterness, he stumbled to his feet and headed down the path the other man had just stumbled down. Things were beginning to blur, and more than once he bumped into a stray Zionite stepping away from the party for a quick breather.

He tripped over something on the floor as he entered his room and swore before leaning over and vomiting. _God, what a freak you are_, he thought to himself as he walked around the pool and headed towards his bed. The feeling of claustrophobia was closing in around him again.

Instead of lying down on the bed, he caught his reflection in a small mirror on the nightstand. Bee had somehow gotten ahold of it (how, she wouldn't say), and he didn't have the heart to throw it away (or any of her other possessions) after she had died. He saw his eyes, bloodshot and red from drinking, and then he saw the rest of his face. Ashamed of himself, of what he had allowed himself to become after Bee had died, he dropped the mirror and crushed it with his foot, reducing the valuable accessory to a thousand shards of glass. _Fuck it_.

He reached for a piece of rope that was on the nightstand, next to where the mirror had been. His hands, worn from work on the ship over the years, began to knot and twist it until he held in his hands a noose.

Swinging the other half of it over a beam above him, he dragged over a chair and stood on it, tying the rope to the beam. He slipped his neck through the noose and closed his eyes, preparing to kick the chair out from underneath him.

Then he remembered how Bee had died, how she had died trying to save him. If he killed himself it would have all been for nothing. Her death would have been meaningless and a waste.

Slowly he undid the rope and tossed it in a corner of the room. His foot was bleeding from when he had crushed the mirror, he noticed as he dragged himself to the bed, but he didn't care. God, what heaven it had been with her. But what a hell she had created for him when she left - he couldn't live without the anguish, and he couldn't die without the guilt.

Trapped again.

Turning over so his back was to the party, he closed his eyes and tried, like he had for the past two years without her, to shut out the world and go to sleep.__


End file.
